Paris Fashion Week opened on Monday with 68 runway shows and 33 presentations on its official spring/summer 2027 calendar, down from 74 shows and 37 presentations a year earlier, according to Vogue Adria’s reading of the schedule. The larger change is who is new. Only two designers are presenting a first collection for their house this season, after a spring/summer 2026 edition that the same report described as a historic season marked by an unprecedented wave of designer debuts.
The nine-day week runs from 28 September to 6 October. It opened with Julie Kegels on Monday afternoon and closes with Louis Vuitton at 18:30 on Tuesday 6 October, according to Luxury.it’s season guide. Between those two slots, the calendar published by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the body that runs Paris Fashion Week, shifts attention from new appointments to what last year’s new hires do next.
From a Wave of Debuts to Just Two
The spring/summer 2026 shows, held in Paris a year ago, were dominated by first collections. Daily Front Row listed Jonathan Anderson’s first women’s ready-to-wear show at Dior, Miguel Castro Freitas at Mugler, Mark Thomas at Carven, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at Loewe, Pierpaolo Piccioli at Balenciaga, Duran Lantink at Jean Paul Gaultier and Matthieu Blazy at Chanel. Glenn Martens also presented his first ready-to-wear collection for Maison Margiela, and Michael Rider showed what was technically his second Celine collection. “Quite the blockbuster week,” the publication wrote.
The autumn/winter 2026 season in March was far quieter, with Antonin Tron’s first collection for Balmain the only major debut, according to the same report. That leaves this season’s two newcomers arriving on a calendar where, as Luxury.it put it, everyone else on the big stages is in their second season or beyond, and no house has announced a farewell show.
The count of shows fell too, from 74 to 68, while presentations dropped from 37 to 33. Luxury.it puts the total at around 100 houses on the official calendar, roughly two-thirds of them staging runway shows, which makes this a full season in every sense except the number of new names.
Who Is Debuting at Courrèges and Carven
Drew Henry shows his first Courrèges collection on Wednesday 30 September at 10:30. The South African designer was previously senior design director at Burberry, and before that worked at JW Anderson and at Phoebe Philo. Courrèges appointed him artistic director on 30 March 2026, after Nicolas Di Felice stepped down following five years at the house, Luxury.it reported.
Kai Nesselrath follows on Thursday 1 October at 12:30 with his first Carven collection. Rome-born and German, he trained at Polimoda and Central Saint Martins and was head designer of womenswear at Saint Laurent under Anthony Vaccarello before Carven named him design director in June. He takes over from Mark Thomas, who left Carven after a single year, according to Daily Front Row.
Both newcomers built their careers inside larger houses. Henry’s route ran through Burberry, JW Anderson and Phoebe Philo, and Nesselrath’s through Saint Laurent, where he was head designer of womenswear under Vaccarello. Their first collections will be read against the brands’ recent histories: Courrèges after five years of Di Felice, and Carven after a one-year tenure that ended in a quick change.
The Second-Collection Test for the Biggest Houses
For the houses that changed creative directors in 2025, this week is the harder exam. “The interesting Paris season is not the one with ten debuts,” Luxury.it wrote in its preview. “It is this one, where the designers hired in the great reshuffle of 2025 show their second and third collections and the market decides whether the first ones were a beginning or a one-off.”
The schedule puts those tests close together. Dior, under Jonathan Anderson, was scheduled for Tuesday at 14:30, with Saint Laurent closing the same day at 21:00, according to the official FHCM calendar. Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Balenciaga follows on Thursday at 14:00, McCollough and Hernandez show Loewe on Friday at 11:30, Michael Rider presents Celine on Saturday at noon and Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel arrives on Monday 5 October at 20:00, with a film of the show released an hour later.
Daily Front Row described Loewe and Givenchy as stellar since the arrival of their current designers, Jack and Laz and Sarah Burton respectively, and said Chemena Kamali has yet to misstep at Chloé since succeeding Gabriela Hearst in 2023. It was less certain about Lanvin, where it said veteran designer Peter Copping “still has yet to make a splash”. Antonin Tron shows his second Balmain collection on Wednesday at 13:30, and Haider Ackermann presents Tom Ford that evening at 20:00.
Who Is Missing From the Calendar
Several familiar names are absent. Rabanne is between creative directors: Julien Dossena left in June after 13 years, according to Daily Front Row, and Olivier Rousteing, named creative director in July, is scheduled to show his first collection in March 2027. Alaïa is holding a presentation designed by its studio team instead of a runway show, its first season since Pieter Mulier’s final show for the house in March, and no successor has yet been named.
Jacquemus is not on the September calendar because it showed its spring 2027 collection in Corsica in June, and Alexander McQueen went back to London, showing at Lincoln’s Inn on 20 September. Vogue Adria reported that McQueen’s return to its home turf comes under creative director Seán McGirr and newly appointed chief executive Gianfranco D’Attis. Giambattista Valli, Off-White and Thom Browne are also off the official schedule, according to Luxury.it, while Vogue Adria lists Nina Ricci, whose creative director Harris Reed stepped down in March 2026, among the absentees.
Houses Coming Home, and a First Paris Show for Maxhosa
Two major houses return after a season away. Maison Margiela, which showed its autumn collection in Shanghai in April, is back on the Paris calendar with a Tuesday show at 17:30, and Valentino, which showed at Palazzo Barberini in Rome on 12 March, returns on Sunday 4 October at 15:30. Sacai, Casablanca, Christopher Esber and Ester Manas are also back on the runway schedule.
The newcomer on the show list is Maxhosa Africa, the South African label founded by Laduma Ngxokolo in 2010, which staged its first Paris show on Monday at 17:00. Fidan Novruzova and Alexandra Golovanoff join the presentation schedule. Sunday, as usual, belongs largely to the Italians, with Niccolò Pasqualetti at noon, Miu Miu at 13:00 and Valentino at 15:30, while Schiaparelli, founded in Paris by an Italian, shows on Thursday at 19:00 under the American designer Daniel Roseberry.
Milan Showed the Same Pattern a Week Earlier
The mood carried over from Milan, whose week ended as Paris began. The Camera della Moda calendar there listed 61 shows and 88 presentations, according to Luxury.it. Fendi presented Maria Grazia Chiuri’s second ready-to-wear collection for the house, and Gucci staged Demna’s second runway show on Friday 25 September.
Moschino was the Milan exception, with the debut of Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo, the pair behind the label Sunnei, who were appointed co-creative directors in June. Versace sat the season out after Pieter Mulier joined as its chief creative officer on 1 July, with his first collection due in early 2027. Across both cities, the headline acts are second chapters rather than first pages.
What Else Is On in Paris This Week
Almost nothing on the calendar admits the public, with one large exception. L’Oréal Paris staged its Le Défilé show on Place Joffre on Monday evening for people who registered while seats lasted, streamed on M6+, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and the SPHERE showroom for emerging labels runs at the Palais de Tokyo from 30 September to 6 October.
Outside the shows, the Palais Galliera exhibition “A Wardrobe of One’s Own” opened on 26 September and runs to 14 February 2027, and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie opens “Irving Penn and Fashion” on 30 September, running to 17 January. For readers following the celebrity calendar, MW3.News recently reported how Mariska Hargitay won two Emmys before hosting the Emmys.
The calendar ends where it always does, with Louis Vuitton on Tuesday 6 October. By then the verdict on this edition of Paris Fashion Week will rest less on new names than on whether last year’s hires have turned a first impression into a lasting house style.
